AMD/iBuyPower Respond To Puget Column

A couple of months back, Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems, penned a column for the site, weighing in on the EU's ruling against Intel. He went on to explain how Intel's legitimate rebate programs work, and why the processor vendor accounted for more than 90% of his CPU sales in 2008.

Understandably, AMD took issue with the claim that its own channel programs weren't as easily accessible to system builders, that its processors were more difficult for VARs to ship, and that the company's chips weren't as commonly-requested as Intel's. Shortly thereafter, I got on the phone with AMD's John Honning, senior manager of North American channel marketing at AMD, and Darren Su, vice president of iBuyPower, to discuss the other side of the story.

If you'd like to read Jon's original column, you can find that right here.

Darren: iBuyPower is both an AMD and Intel partner. Under Intel, we're Premier Members. Under AMD, we’re been Premier Partners since 2002. Both vendors are great, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

Chris: The story we're discussing sprung from the EU ruling against Intel, and Jon addressed a few challenges that AMD faces currently.

Darren: Yes, let me address those. He said that customers are not asking for AMD, AMD isn’t getting itself in front of system builders, and AMD systems are harder to ship and support. So, I’m not a technical person—I’m more of a marketing person. So, I’ll give you my marketing perspective working with both companies.

The advantage AMD has the consistency and creativity of its marketing program. For the past seven or eight years, we’ve participated in the Intel Inside program. Based on sales, they put a percentage into a bucket for marketing co-op and we're supposed to be able to claim those funds. But we joke that it’s very difficult to actually claim them because Intel always finds a way to deny those claims. This doesn’t happen with AMD, though. We’re here to promote product—we shouldn’t be punished for it. That was my number one concern.

Number two is, finally last year Intel stepped up and said “thanks guys for the support.” So in addition to Intel Inside, there is now a BDF program--business development funds, which are only accessible to a few customers and designed to push higher-end configurations. Now, we have 40% year to year growth, but this year there is a recession, so they say “now we’re taking that back.” At the same time, we never hear “we’re cutting your funds” from AMD. That’s the consistency I mentioned.

John: The one issue we saw with the Puget column was—just like Intel has exclusive customers, and we do too—you’re going to see a one-sided argument that we don’t do enough with them. They might not be a large reseller and thus don’t fall into the categories like Darren mentioned for the business development funds.

Darren: What I disagree with the most on this article is that they claim themselves to be high-end gaming integrators (Ed.: to be specific, Jon said "As a boutique outfit that focuses primarily on high-performance, highly reliable computers..." in his column) but are only familiar with AMD as far back as K6 (Ed.: check out the original column, linked above for the context here). Since the introduction of the first Athlon, AMD changed the landscape of gaming. Without Athlon, there would be no gaming PCs, period. Just think about the Athlon 64 FX.

Yes, the original Phenom had a bad name and was less successful. But K6 being the latest product demanded from AMD? Athlon woke up a giant at Intel—even Paul Otellini admitted at the Intel ISS conference that Intel was behind. Without AMD, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s true that Intel has the technology lead with Core i7. I understand that. But to say the past 10 years of AMD’s support is not there, I totally disagree with. You can quote me today saying the Athlon changed the entire landscape of gaming.

And to say that AMD systems are hard to ship? We use many different heavy heatsinks and we don’t have issues.

We’re at 38% (AMD) versus 62% (Intel) market share right now—those are my numbers.

John: You know as well as I do, Chris, that this is a relationship business. The better relationships you have the more business you’re going to do. With regard to getting more creative, I appreciate Darren saying we’re more flexible, and I really think we’re easier to do business with because the market is so dynamic and we’re always looking at new ways to attack it. We’re creating resource centers for the partners so they can see the whole story.

At the very highest-end, the folks in blue have a performance advantage, but from a price/performance level, we beat them across the board. The greatest value we have been able to bring to the table is the platform story. We have the CPUs like they do, the chipsets like they do, but we also have graphics. Having the entire platform like that with the huge milestones—the 700-series chipsets, the 4000-series graphics, and Phenom II—I think you’re seeing a huge momentum shift our way.

I would love to reach out to Jon over at Puget systems, because if we’re not touching him and there’s an opportunity there, we should definitely be talking.

Chris: Now, John, you know my background and you know I’ve done a lot of channel coverage. I’m familiar with what each vendor offers in the way of programs and incentives, and so where Jon’s story resonated with me was that I communicate with Intel regarding their different programs from the server to the desktop to the mobile side—this information is all even available through Google—programs designed to help the channel compete against tier-ones. When I try to do the same with AMD, I’m not able to come up with anything. So, if there are resources out there simply not being advocated in a way that builders know are available—I think that’s the message you’d want to get across. If they exist, how do builders get access to it?

John: Right, that sounds like a good challenge on our part. Because we do have a number of programs, the same as the other guys. Maybe we don’t publicize it because they’re not offered across the board—usually at the higher-end of our goal level. But I’d be curious to see what Intel has for the really small guys, too. We have around 10,000 to 14,000 of those guys right now, who we mainly send education and information to at our own entry-level program. Our market builder portal is available to any reseller out there, with all of those resources.

So there you have it. If you're a system builder (and by system builder I mean a for-profit individual or organization that'd qualify for one of these reseller programs, rather than an enthusiast who builds his own machines when it comes time to upgrade), I again welcome you to share your experiences and opinions. Remember, this all started with the EU's judgment against Intel, on which Jon Bach of Puget Systems wrote about for Tom's Hardware.

And indeed, even domestically, AMD has subpoenaed information about corporate-approved pricing, market development funds, funds for joint marketing, and business development funds, so each company's use of such reseller incentives is most definitely in play here. What're your thoughts?

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • michaelahess
    Back around 2k I owned a computer business and I was a reseller of both Intel and AMD. AMD was far and away the most "friendly" towards the little guy. I sold well over 70% AMD. Only very high end builds or special requests were Intel. I will never buy Intel for my gaming rigs, and I will avoid them whenever possible for laptops. Intel is out for the dollar and nothing else. AMD has the compassion of a small town company but with "near" comprable products to Intel.

    Am I a fan-boy? No, I use Xeon's almost exclusively in server builds. Different market, different needs. Home/enthusiast use is a very different area.
    Reply
  • AMD called me at one point and offered to ship me sample boards and processor(s). Listen, they called me and offered. We mostly sell Intel.
    I never did receive anything. SO why call and try to get me to switch. We sell mostly still Intel but that did piss me off. Just my .02 $
    Reply
  • 7amood
    I love AMD... I think they are hard working and I believe one day they will reach the top.

    lets hope that when they reach the top... they won't be like their... uh... competition...
    Reply
  • JMS3096
    To be honest, AMD has a much greater level of innovation in the CPU market. If you look at the Nehalem architecture, almost all of its best aspects- monolithic quad-core design, integrated memory controller, point-to-point serial system bus- were originally introduced in K10. Does the Intel version work better? Yes. Was it original? No.

    That's what I love about AMD- they have creative ideas. Intel may be able to spit out better designs on existing ideas, but AMD far-and-away takes the prize for innovation.
    Reply
  • JAYDEEJOHN
    It seems to ne, if youre to receibe free sample boards and free cpus, youd have followed that up with correspondence, Did you? And , if you did, what was the response from AMD? And , if that response wasnt to your liking, did you persue it further by naming the person you corresponded with to a superior?
    Complaining with little knowledge of what really happened sounds.....
    Reply
  • andy_newton
    @JMS3096

    It's the result that matters.

    @AMD -> Advanced Micro Device company, not their fans

    Don't forget that a while back plenty of ATI senior engineers fled the New AMD because AMD tells its ATI roadmap to nVidia for no obvious reasons & no obvious benefit.

    It's a misconduct since YOUR heads got big when Intel Prescott failed to compete with YOUR Athlon X2 and too late to realize that their highest end Phenom can not compete with highest end Core2duo and let alone today's i7.

    Without those senior engineers, there's no way YOU can defeat Intel and there's no way your ATI can defeat nVidia immediately because of lack of good drivers.

    Now open source drivers??? That is just so lame--you can't make good driver so you let your users figure it out on their own.

    Wake up AMD!!!

    EVEN APPLE DOES NOT WANT YOUR X86!!!

    I was in the market for building an all AMD system a few years ago in china, strictly for gaming. Asus or MSI board with Athlon X2 CPU & ATI chipset.

    The problem was: there is no ATI chipsets in China even till this day. Look at your Opteron. The best 4 socket Opteron board has not 1 but TWO Intel gigabit ethernet???

    I don't want to mix stuff especially from competing companies. If you can't get an all AMD, might as well make it all Intel with nVidia graphics.

    Since we all know that nvidia chipset works best with nvidia graphics, isn't it obvious that getting a board for intel i7 with nvidia chipset & nvidia graphics is a way better system then a Phenom x4 with nvidia chipset (no ATI chipset down here) and ATI graphics?

    So understand that it is indeed very difficult to get an all AMD not because of Intel, rather, because AMD IS NOT SERIOUS ENOUGH to compete with Intel!!!

    AMD does NOT want to compete with intel anymore. Since Core2duo, YOU, AMD, have had this looser mentality and had only hoped to make money from mid-range products and by suing Intel!!!

    WTF

    Wake up AMD!!!

    PROVE ME WRONG!!!

    Let me buy a 4 socket OPTERON board with ATI Chipset and broadcom gigabit LAN!!! No intel no nvidia!!!

    NAME one vendor that makes that!!!

    JUST ONE!!!

    Your vendors have factories in China and China population is billions. They game like crazy every single day and YOU, AMD, choose not do any ATI business in China and now YOU, AMD, are blaming Intel for your own lack of winning mentality!!!

    If YOU, AMD, don't even believe you can win, why should WE, your (former) devoted fans, believe in YOU anymore?

    PROVE ME WRONG!!!

    Abandon all this Intel Lawsuits and focus on making great products like you used to. Defeat Intel!!!

    Make Paul Otellini say it again to Intel shareholders: "We can not compete with AMD"

    I wanna see the arrogant Steve Jobs of Apple knocking on your door begging on his knees to transition their X86 to AMD.

    Make it happen!!!

    For all who had loved AMD and for those who still does,

    Best Regards,

    -ND
    Reply
  • JAYDEEJOHN
    This availability , could it have been the reason for the EUs decision?
    They (Intel) have been found guilty 3 times, in three areas of the world, sounds like Intel had availibility all right
    Reply
  • XD_dued
    "He went on to explain how Intel's legitimate rebate programs work, and why the processor vendor accounted for more than 90% of his CPU sales in 2008"
    I've noticed on the puget systems website, in order to get an AMD cpu, you need to select the "more..." option of cpus. I wonder if this accounts for anything.......
    Reply
  • FSXFan
    Andy_Newton@JMS3096It's the result that matters. Blah blah blah blah blah.....
    Hey fanboy, take a chill pill. Nobody cares if Apple doesn't use AMD CPU's. I'm sure least of all AMD.

    I agree with JMS3096 though, most of the "new" features on the i7 were old news at AMD.
    Reply
  • I love how everyone says "AMD is more creative than Intel, so we'll back them"...what good is creativity when they don't have the knowledge or know how to compete with Intel on a business level? Bitch and complain all you want about the "questionable" business tactics that Intel used in EU, but the bottom line is they sold the most systems, got the job done, and THEY MAKE THE BETTER PRODUCT. I don't care if AMD originally came up with great CPU designs and now Intel is using them....if you come up with a great idea, yet you don't have the motivation to properly get it heard and someone else runs with it, it's on you for your failures, plain and simple. I work in a shop in a small town that builds systems day in and day out, and we've never touched an AMD system. Why? Not because we're fanboys...it's simple....Intel produces results and stable systems, and AMD is garbage....all the way from Athlon XP to Phenom. Make a better product line and I'll switch in a heartbeat. Same goes with graphics...ATI can now compete with NVIDIA according to benchmarks, but every user review I've read says their drivers are still garbage.
    Reply